


The Problem with Pathogens

by sanguine_scales



Series: SPN Oneshot-apalooza [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adam is Saved, Human Michael, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Cage, Sick Michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 11:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5125454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguine_scales/pseuds/sanguine_scales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Michael faces the woes of an inadequate human immune system, and Adam reprises his role as the little spoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Problem with Pathogens

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everybody! Here's a little thing I wrote for Midam week this year. (Which was sadly the only thing I had time to write for Midam week this year.) I promise that I'm still working hard on The Long Road to Home. It's just taking a little more time than I thought due to an unholy combination of extra projects and characterization paranoia. But in the mean time... here's this as a peace offering! 
> 
> This story takes place post-Cage in which Michael is completely and unfortunately human, Adam is attending college classes thanks to some sketchy Winchester-style identity fraud, and the two of them share an apartment somewhere away from it all while they recover. 
> 
> Warning(s): Mild language, how NOT to treat a fever (by Michael), slight allusions to minor PTSD-like symptoms (first couple of paragraphs)

When Adam wakes up to the blazing heat in the dark, he panics.

All he can think of is  _pain_  and  _burning_  and  _Hell_. Michael’s grace is missing from the core of his chest, and his limbs go rigid because  _shit_ _!_ The archangel  _can’t_  be  _gone_.  _Can’t_  have left Adam alone, and Adam is…

Perfectly fine, he forces himself to remember. 

He’s home. The Cage never came complete with a soft bed and thick comforter. His fingers dig into the soft sheets hard enough to hurt just to remind himself that they’re  _free_. The warmth he’s so used to being beside him is missing, which probably hadn’t helped his panicked reaction.

It takes a long ten minutes to force himself to fumble around blindly on the nightstand, but he manages to find the switch. Pale light floods the small bedroom, and Adam peels the sweaty comforter back from his body as he sits up. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, grumbling about the shoddy maintenance of the apartment complex. 

If his voice breaks, he stubbornly ignores it.

He’s gotten really good at ignoring shit lately.

His legs are still shaking, but he forces them to bear his weight and tries to funnel all the vestigial terror and fear into anger because being vulnerable still isn’t an option in his head. He knows it isn’t healthy. Knows that, after a year out of the Cage, he’s probably long past overdue for a true breakdown. He’s just too damn used to every insignificant weaknesses falling prey to the shadows of the Cage. He can’t just  _let go_  anymore, and he’s almost afraid of what’s going to happen when he finally does crack. He’d seen Sam finally break back then, and a tendril of dread goes ignored for another day.

The first hint that something is off is the light pouring into the hallway from the barely cracked bathroom door.

He hears water running, which is  _definitely_ off and not just because Michael has apparently decided to take a shower at four in the morning. The former archangel is borderline obsessive about the order and routine of their shared, semi-shitty apartment. The way he funnels his entire concentration onto mundane crap like that makes Adam occasionally wonder if he isn’t the only one quickly heading down the foggy road to a breakdown of truly epic proportions.

He almost wonders if that isn’t what’s going on now as he creeps further down the hall.

“Michael?” he calls, voice just hushed enough to carry down the hall.

He’s pretty sure they’re going to get shit from Jack and Teresa Holloway in the complex below them for the noise. They’re already in a passive-aggressive standoff because Michael brutally shut Jack down from condemning Miranda and Lori from 6B to Hell on their engagement night last month. And Michael’s support naturally, is apparently a sign that he and Adam are apparently ‘together’ now, too. 

It’s annoying as hell on principle but also because nothing is actually going on besides two survivors of the Cage trying to scrape by in a world that’s kept on moving while they were gone.

It doesn’t matter how warm Adam feels when he remembers the former angel pulling the women aside to explain that, yes, he has it on good authority that they aren’t going to suffer eternal damnation just for loving each other. It doesn’t matter that he and Michael have shared the same bed since Michael found out about the constant nightmares. Doesn’t matter that he remembers being so wrapped up in each other that they managed to survive the Cage intact.

_Mostly._

It’s just another tick mark on the long list of “Things Adam Milligan Ignores.”

The thermostat catches his attention at the corner of his eyes. 

He frowns because it’s apparently not another maintenance issue that the thing is set to 88 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s weirdness strike number two, and it drives Adam to pad down the hall faster.

He knocks at the bathroom door. “Michael, what the  _hell_  are you doing in there?” is hissed just loud enough to be heard over the spray of the water, “People are trying to sleep.”

The water shuts off abruptly. He listens to the sound of footsteps and more shuffling than he’s ever heard from the typically graceful archangel. That’s strike three, and he’s  _sure_  that something’s wrong now. It’s a long seven minutes before he hears the slip and quiet  _thump_.

He gives up propriety and opens the door to find Michael perched carefully on the edge of the tub, long fingers curled into the porcelain in a death grip. His dark hair is wet and dripping, and it’s pretty obvious he hasn’t dried off well before slipping into one of the pairs of sweats they’d picked up a few weeks ago. The clothes and the sweltering heat of the apartment (and the apparently straight hot water he’d been running) have done nothing to stop the subtle shaking of his limbs and shoulders.  His face is flushed, and dark bags hang under strangely unfocused green eyes.

He looks up at Adam, completing the picture of misery in the washed out, yellow light of their bathroom, “I may be ill.” His voice is rough in a way that sounds more like Dean than what Adam’s used to hearing these days.

Some knot of worry in his stomach eases while he desperately tries to choke back an amused sound at the  _slight_  understatement. He moves forward, careful across the tiles of the floor, slick with condensation and humidity. He grabs a towel from the shelf and stops in front of the former angel. He’s slow enough as he reaches forward to give Michael plenty of time to protest for his own self-sufficiency. The fact that he doesn’t—just sits there with a white-knuckled grip on the tub—while Adam dries his hair says more than anything about how bad it is.

 _Shit_ , Adam hopes it’s not bad enough to need a hospital. They’ve both got paperwork and IDs now, thanks to Sam and Dean, but he  _really_  doesn’t want to test Michael’s patience with the health care system enough to try it unless they need to.

“C’mon,” he prompts, throwing the towel aside when the dark stands of hair at least aren’t dripping anymore, “You’ve got a fever, and this isn’t helping.”

“Fever?” Michael peers up at him, bleary and skeptical, “But I’m  _cold_.”

“Yeah,” Adam agrees, holding out a hand, “Welcome to the wonders of the human immune system. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

Clammy fingers wrap tightly around his as Michael gets with a slight wobble. Adam encourages him to wrap his arm around the blonde’s shoulders for support since it’s pretty obvious he’s not too steady on his feet right now. He’s a too-hot line of muscle against Adam’s side as they ease their way from the bathroom. 

Michael’s breath is warm against Adam’s neck as he leans part of his on his former vessel. This new body—apparently a carbon copy of an old vessel—is only a few inches taller than the blonde, but he’s broader and thankfully built for a mix of speed and power. Adam isn’t sure he could lug a guy Sam’s size down the hall. 

“I woke you,” Michael breathes as Adam pauses to turn down the thermostat, “That wasn’t my intention.”

Adam sighs and readjusts his footing to better support the partial weight Michael allows him to help carry. “You could have,” he points out, “This is the kind of crap I can actually fix.”

Those sorts of problems running in short supply these days, but they’re making it work.

Michael slides under the comforter while Adam cracks open the window and lets some fresh air in. “Stay there,” he tells Michael and heads back out into the hall. He comes back with a glass of water and hands Michael the bottle of pills to scrutinize the ingredients as usual, which he does in the lamp light. “Take one every six hours,” Adam instructs, “Should help with the fever. Drink as much as you can. If it gets worse, we’ll go to the hospital.”

Michael makes a face like he’s bitten down on a lemon at the last proclamation but takes the pill anyway. The blonde settles back against the headboard and flips the TV on quietly. He knows he’s probably going to get sick, too, if he isn’t careful, but he’s not heartless enough to leave Michael by himself the first time he has to struggle with feeling like shit–human style.

Besides, the couch is unyielding, it’s hell on the back, and he’s too used to having someone next to him to drive off the nightmares.

He’s halfway through an episode of The Twilight Zone when Michael pipes up again, voice a rough mutter at Adam’s side, “Go to sleep, Adam.”

The blonde frowns and glances at the clock. 3:45. The alarm will go off in less than three hours. “’S fine,” he assures, repressing a yawn, “Need to make sure you don’t get worse.”

They fall silent, watching a family trying to get rid of a robot by pushing it down the stairs. Michael shuts his eyes during the introduction of the next episode. Adam gives him a few minutes before gently pressing a hand to his forehead. It’s a pretty decent fever, but it’s not bad enough to merit a trip to the hospital yet.

He isn’t, however, expecting Michael to still be awake. 

“It feels like falling,” he breathes, the lines around his closed eyes tense in the way of people trying to fight off a wave of nausea. 

The words are quiet and understated, barely above a whisper.

Adam watches him quietly while something clenches in his chest. He doesn’t let himself think about the memory of magnificent, powerful sets of wings and all the things now lost to being next to him. He just closes the window, slips under the covers, and gently pulls Michael’s arm around his waist.

He’s not sure if the lack of resistance surprises him more or less than the careful tug that has Adam effectively playing little spoon against an ancient being of formerly unimaginable power, trapped in the all too fragile body of a human. He vaguely realizes that it’s going to be an uncomfortably warm night, but he can’t bring himself to care. 

Not when he’s allowed this.

“It’s just vertigo,” he assures, tapping a hand almost affectionately against the former angel’s arm, “Totally normal.” He knows Michael well enough to understand that he appreciates facts more than vague platitudes.

“I know,” comes the response. Adam, for his part, tries not to focus on the fact that he can feel the light rumble that accompanies the words. The fact that Michael is sick and he’s half asleep make the whole thing a lot less attractive than it would be. “Go back to sleep, Adam.”

Adam frowns, “I said it’s fin—“

“You have an exam. I’ll wake you if it gets worse,” Michael promises, a hint of the stubborn, ‘I’m literally older than sin, so I know best’ tone sneaking in. It’s the same tone Adam usually hears in the middle of an argument or when Serious Shit goes down.

He huffs, shakes his head, and starts letting himself relax.

He tries not to think about how he hopes they can keep doing this without one of them being sick. Then again, with the way Michael leans into him like a lazy cat looking for sunlight, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have to worry about that.

And if, three weeks later, he manages to kiss Michael in full view of the Holloways and Winchesters both, he’s just calling it bonus points.  


End file.
